Shockwave between-the-scenes AU
by Manuuk7
Summary: Just trying to connect the dots.


Disclaimer: I own neither the characters nor the concept of Star Trek.

"The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travail is impossible."

Silik sighed in exasperation. No matter the question, it was the same answer. He knew from the Cabal's experiments that even Vulcans could not resist the powerful combination of mind-altering drugs that the Cabal had refined over decades, no more than could the Klingons or the Andorians or any of the many species that had gone through their interrogation chambers. He was therefore stymied that this one seemed to be able to evade his questions. Perhaps she had additional training – after all, she was Starfleet. He grew worried that the man from the future might be dissatisfied with him. He was going to make her pay for that. He grabbed the Vulcan by the chin so that her unfocused eyes could latch on to his face. He had never experienced the chemical torture himself but he knew that it played havoc on the optical nerves, along with a number of other physiological systems.

"I am done with you, but you have not been very helpful" he whispered. "We have an antidote that I would usually give you at this time." He paused. "But I won't. I'm sure you will find the experience… interesting." T'Pol couldn't see the sinister expression on his face, lost in an indistinct halo of distorted slivers of images but she heard it in his tone, even through the tunnel effect that made his voice unpleasantly sonorous.

Silik stepped back and waited. The seconds ticked by. The pressure of the chemicals on her neural system intensified, the drugs targeting the speech centers in the brain in such a way that not talking became physically painful. To talk was the only way to stave off the pain, and yet the drugs deprived her of voluntary speech. Their recipients became automaton voice boxes that could talk only in response to questions asked and then had no choice but to respond, and to do so with excruciating honesty. Not talking brought on mind-numbing pain. Consciously withholding information resulted in extremes of pain. If there were no questions, speech was suppressed. If the speech centers were not activated, the mental pressure kept rising until it became physical. Soon, the pain was unbearable. The fluids coursing through the thick tubes became boiling plasma in her veins, white hot searing pain that ripped every last capillary to shreds as they cycled through, over and over again. Her mental shields laid waste by the chemicals, she screamed her agony.

Silik leaned towards her. "What are you feeling now?" The drugs gave her no choice but to reply without conscious volition. "Pain" was the gasped answer. In a heartbeat the pain was gone, turned off by the activation of the speech centers, the fluids circling through the tubes back to inert chemicals. Silik nodded, smiling. "I just wanted you to get a taste. I'll leave you alone now. I really wish you had been more helpful." He leaned over conspirationally. "Our drug mix has a half-life of two hours. We've already been ...'conversing'... for an hour. In another hour the effects will dissipate. Plenty of time to think things over," he grinned. "Not that it will make a difference, in the grander scheme of things" he added with a smirk. After all, he still had the Enterprise. At a flick of his head, the two surgeons left and he followed them out of the room.

Seconds started ticking by again. The pressure of the chemicals intensified. She bucked against the restraints, tried to wrench her arms free but she was tightly strapped in the grip of the restraining chair. The pain became unrelenting, the liquid drugs carrying wave after wave of crushing pain in an endless loop of increasing intensity. This time, there was no one to ask a salutary question. Her screams carried through the thick door of the interrogation room, echoing down the empty corridor all the way to the surgeons' offices. The technician in attendance looked up then went back to his record-keeping, blocking the screams out from long experience.

It took some time before he noticed they had stopped. When the new-found silence finally registered on his consciousness he looked up again, automatically recording the time in a well-worn routine. It had been a little over an hour. He felt satisfaction at the fact their dosages were becoming ever more precise.

In the empty room, T'Pol slowly regained control of her mental processes, a sheen of sweat covering her skin and edging her grey camisole. Her breath came in short shallow rasps. The pain had suddenly become manageable. She opened her eyes. The optical distortions were still there but the room had stopped canting at an abnormal angle. Her mouth was dry, her throat hurt from screaming. After a long while the surgeons came back and started unhooking the torturous tubes, efficient but mindless of any additional pain their rough handling was inflicting. Later again two guards walked in and brought her back to her quarters, dumping her unceremoniously on the bench near her door.

 _ **Two days later**_

Archer was reclining in bed, watching the rerun of a water polo match as he caught up with a pile of padds, moving them from an orderly stack on his right to an haphazard pile on his left as he read them. The mission was still on, the Suliban's criminal intervention had been unmasked, and he was getting back into captain mode. As captain, he wanted to, needed to, know everything that had transpired while he was stranded in the 31st century with Daniels, even if not all of it was worth his focused attention. The reports of his senior officers were the pulse of his ship. As usual, he kept T'Pol's padd for last, her reports were the most detailed and tended to nicely wrap up the others.

He suddenly stopped reading and turned off the videoscreen, bringing his full attention to the padd in his hand. 'Two Suliban guards came to my quarters and took me for questioning.' His mind went back to a line in Tucker's report that he had been unable to contact T'Pol when he had first figured out how to use the EPS to talk to his shipmates. Archer had pondered the comment, kept it in the back of his mind as a question to be resolved. He now had the answer. The only questioning he knew of so far had been Lieutenant Reed's brutal treatment by the Suliban. There had been no inkling that T'Pol also had been a target. The senior staff had obviously been unaware of it. Damn Vulcan privacy. He thought back to T'Pol's reaction when he first contacted her in her quarters. 'The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel… is unfair.' He had known in his gut then that something was off, had kept asking her if she was all right. But that had been subsumed by the urgency to get their ship back. He felt a wave of anger wash through him. If he had known... He wished he was back on the Suliban cell ship, Silik passed out at his feet, so that he could revive him and make him feel in excruciating detail the price to be paid for daring lay a finger on one of his crew.

Steeling himself against the unpleasantness that he was expecting to find on the basis of Reed's treatment, Archer went back to reading T'Pol's report, a tightness in his stomach as his mind filled in with images and feelings the clinical narrative that scientifically and dispassionately exposed the methodology used by the Sulibans and the effect of the drugs on a Vulcan metabolism. Archer mulled that it would be helpful to Starfleet to know that the Suliban had access to an irresistible form of biological torture, even if they could not identify exactly what was in the chemical cocktail. He remembered Ka'ang and how they found the Klingon passed out in a restraining chair, in all probability victim of the same questioning. The Klingon had recovered fully without any long-lasting effects, for which Archer was grateful. He made a mental note to check Phlox's report for his assessment and prognosis.

When he was done with that part of the report, Archer looked up again, the padd on his lap, frowning. Something was not adding up, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He hit the back button a couple of times, forcing himself to re-read the passage more carefully, trying to sort out what it was that had put his instincts on alert. It finally dawned on him. The detailed description of the effects of the chemicals and the questioning by Silik was followed by a laconically short 'Silik was not satisfied with the results of the interrogation and refused to provide the antidote to the chemicals'. From there, the report skipped straight to the crew's actions in overcoming two of the Suliban guards.

' _Nice try there, First Officer_ ' thought Archer. Talk about a giant gaping hole of unanswered questions. What was this about an antidote? What happened when it was not given? Why was Silik not satisfied? Archer's mind was a cauldron of questions. The report had been written for Starfleet, whose main interest was the use hostile parties could make of such chemicals and the inherent danger for their mission, but that was not good enough for the captain of the Enterprise, whose main interest was also his crew.

Archer searched through the pile of padds until he found Phlox's report. He had absentmindedly skimmed it as he knew that, other than the report on Reed, the only medical issues had been garden-variety bumps and bruises and broken bones from the engagement with the Suliban, and assumed he must have missed the report on T'Pol. He soon realized with a frown that there was no report, no indication that she had even been to Sickbay. Archer bounced the padd a few times against the palm of his hand, thinking, then stretched to reach the wall intercom "Archer to Phlox."

"Yes, Captain" The Denobulan's voice was all a-smile. Archer went straight to the point. "Did T'Pol report to sickbay?" Starfleet regulations were explicit that any crew member that had been subjected to 'questioning' must get a full medical and psychological evaluation before reporting back for duty. He briefly wondered if the Vulcan High Command had a similar protocol. He had a sense T'Pol's was trying to finesse that she was not subject to Starfleet's regulations. The hell she wasn't. "I haven't seen T'Pol, Captain" Phlox sounded puzzled. "Was I supposed to?" Archer briefly filled him on the events that had transpired while the Suliban held the ship. Phlox sounded none too pleased by the end of their conversation.

"Phlox to T'Pol" T'Pol opened her eyes as the intercom's shrill call cut through her meditation. She gracefully unfolded herself from her kneeling position and walked over to the wall intercom. Before she even opened the line she had deduced that Archer must have read her report. The call was not unexpected as she it was among the outcomes she had calculated before submitting it.

"T'Pol here."

"Please report to Sickbay for a full physical tomorrow at 0800."

"I do not -"

"0800 tomorrow, Sub-Commander. Captain's order."

Phlox cut off the conversation in a manner that was uncharacteristically short for him. T'Pol raised an eyebrow at the silent intercom before walking back to her meditation pad. She seemed to have underestimated the probability of this particular outcome. She had correctly predicted that Captain Archer would read her report carefully but she had incorrectly predicted he would not have her report to Sickbay since the matter was already well in the past. A Vulcan captain would have known that she would deal with any physical or psychological aftereffects through meditation and reach out for help if there was a need.

She could not change the past and it would be illogical to dwell on it, and she proceeded back to her meditation. Yet it eluded her…

 _ **The next morning**_

Phlox's manner when she entered sickbay was professional though his smile was not as deep as usual. He gestured her to a bio-bed before walking over, seemingly fiddling with his scanner "And when were you going to tell me about your personal encounter with the Suliban, hmm, Sub-commander?" the doctor looked up at her.

"If you remember, Doctor, we were confined to our quarters. After we escaped from the helix and Captain Archer caught up with us, it seemed like a moot point."

"How about letting your doctor decide what's a moot point, hmm, 'doctor'?" Phlox's smile was still tight. His attention turned to the screens above the biobed. ""Hmm… yes, I see your stress hormones are elevated." He paused, looked down at her, his demeanor earnestly serious. "That was a couple of days ago already. For readings to still be this elevated, things must have been... quite uncomfortable" he let his voice trail off, balancing on his heels, considering. He was dealing with a Vulcan, who could think rings around any kind of overt therapeutic approach he might be tempted to try. He decided his only option was to elevate the conversation to a purely scientific level.

"T'Pol, can you go over exactly what happened, especially in terms of symptoms and effects?" Noticing that Phlox seemed to be less angry with her, T'Pol obligingly started describing the procedure used by the Suliban, the surgeons who had roughly marked and disinfected the four major Vulcan arteries before inserting thick tubes into them, the heavy square collar that kept the tubes untangled and maintained the level of pressure necessary for blood circulation, the burning sensation at regular intervals whenever a new dose of drugs was injected. She stopped while Phlox examined the insertion points, assessing from the size of the healing scabs how thick the tubes must have been, the red and green bruising around each entry point proof enough that the procedure had been painful.

He thought about remonstrating her again for not having found her way to Sickbay sooner. He opted instead for a more neutral "Well, these are pretty much closed up by now, there is not much we can do. Do you have any idea what the drugs they used might have been?" Very soon doctor and patient morphed into two scientists working together on a research project. T'Pol described how the drugs distorted lights and sounds, gave birth to mental hallucinations, disturbed the centers of voluntary speech, and mostly, primarily, incited a compulsion to speak, to respond to all questions asked with the absolute truth, or else mental pressure became physical pain that kept increasing until it reached a level that was 'unmanageable', euphemism that gave Phlox a fair idea of the agony suffered. Phlox shook his head. He knew of no substance that on its own could create this type of symptoms. The two of them were standing in front of the medical database, scanning for literature on various alien hallucinogenic compounds when Phlox realized they had somewhat strayed from their original purpose.

"Sorry, Sub-Commander, but this is supposed to be a physical exam. If you'll indulge me." He guided T'Pol back to the biobed, once again taking in the results that the diagnostic screens were flashing back at him. "There seems to be no residue from the chemicals that you were injected with" he commented.

"They had a half-life of two hours." T'Pol explained.

Phlox let his surprise show. "A half-life of two hours? What do you mean?" The slimmest shift in the Vulcan's posture put him on red alert that they were entering sensitive territory. _'Now we are getting to the heart of the matter_ ' thought Phlox. In the absence of an answer to his question, he busied himself with a mobile portalab, seeming to not pay any attention to his patient He matter-of-factly went on "So, how did it end?"

"Doctor?"

Phlox sighed inwardly. He was going to be patient. In light of, hmm, recent events, he had decided to adjust his approach and not press for answers but leave her in control of the process. "How did your 'interrogation', for lack of a better word, end? I assume they couldn't just pull the carrier lines out. What protocol did they follow?"

"The chemical mix had a half-life of two hours." T'Pol repeated as if this was the obvious answer.

'

 _T'Pol_ ', the doctor thought, ' _you know better than trying to throw your old Denobulan doctor off-track_ '. Phlox had always known she was a worthy adversary. "Listen, Sub-Commander, - T'Pol -", he stressed her name, "we can go around like this for a while, but I need to know, as your doctor, what happened next." Her eyes dipped right, then left, before coming to rest on him, a telltale sign that she was uncomfortable. He stood by the biobed, projecting warm support.

"The Suliban, Silik, said that an antidote was available."

Phlox nodded. That would make practical sense. Rather than draw the interrogation for hours and have the surgeons remain for the duration, it made sense that the Suliban would have developed a way to counter the effect of the drugs and allow them to efficiently process the interrogation of several prisoners.

"So they gave you the antidote?" As he said it, he had a vague memory about something to do with antidote that Archer said was in her report to Starfleet. Perhaps that they didn't give it? He wasn't sure.

"No, Silik refused to give me the antidote." T'Pol answered the unspoken question that came next. "He felt my questioning had been unproductive. He kept asking about time travel, but the Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible."

"I see." Phlox had a sudden realization that the interrogation must have been a train wreck for the Suliban. Of course. They had asked the wrong question of the wrong person. The single question that T'Pol could never answer in the way they wanted. Even if she did answer them, there was no way they could be satisfied with what she said. On the one side, there was a society that blindly followed the utterances of a man 400 years in the future. On the other side, a society that obstinately refused the concept of time travel no matter how many proofs they encountered. Nothing could bridge that kind of gap.

His understanding was still incomplete, though. "So when they didn't give you the antidote, what happened?"

T'Pol glanced sideway at him as if he were a slow-witted younger brother. "The chemical mix had a half-life of two hours. My 'questioning' lasted a little less than an hour. An hour later, the effects of the chemicals abated."

Something was not adding up. "But they didn't keep questioning you?" Phlox asked.

T'Pol shook her head just a fraction "No, they left the room."

"But" Phlox was still trying to grasp fragments of an elusive truth "if there were no questions you could not provide any answers?"

T'Pol nodded "That is correct."

"But then, if you could not answer, there was no way to counteract the pain?" As he said it, Phlox had a sudden revelation about what exactly took place. He looked at T'Pol soberly and she read his realization in the set of his mouth.

"How long?" Phlox asked.

"A little over an hour."

"How bad was the pain?"

T'Pol paused, thinking. "I lack a scale of comparison" she started.

Phlox grew impatient, though not with her. "Let's create a scale then. Was the pain as bad as when they first injected you?" T'Pol nodded. Phlox sighed, looking up at the panels, even though he knew there would be nothing there for him to find.

"And then, after the hour?"

"The pain became manageable again. A half-hour later the surgeons came back and reversed the insertion process." T'Pol sat up on the biobed. "I am fine, Doctor."

Phlox looked at her "Physically, yes, you are fine, Sub-Commander. Whatever substances they injected in your bloodstream have dissipated and the only sign anything happened are those four fairly large incisions that are already half-healed. But psychologically, I would like you to consider that what you experienced was a form of loss of control, and that it is something that is quite unnerving for a Vulcan, much more so than for a Human, or a Denobulan or a Klingon or about any other species in the galaxy, for that matter, hmm? And when the Suliban refused the antidote, that sense of loss of control lasted much longer than it would otherwise have. That must have been difficult to deal with." T'Pol glanced downward but didn't say anything. "The question for you to face and resolve is whether you can identify and isolate that this was not actually a loss of control. The only real control one has over torture is to survive it. " T'Pol's glance shifted as she took in what Phlox said and set it aside for future review. "Thank you, Doctor." T'Pol got off the bio-bed "Can I report for duty now?"

Phlox was all smile. "Absolutely Sub-Commander. And if you encounter any issue processing any of this, you will come see me right away, hmm?"

The swish of the shutting doors was his only answer. It didn't really matter. Phlox good-humoredly went on to feed his menagerie. His notes would report, very confidentially, that all therapeutic goals had been met.


End file.
